Parents As Teachers

Support Group Offers Ideas For Families Whose Children Are Home Schooled.

September 17, 2003|By Ashley Miller Special Correspondent

Hundreds of home-schooled students and their parents filled the Worship Center in Plantation last week for their first meeting of the year to discuss activities and opportunities available for home-schoolers.

The group, Broward Homeschool Parent Support Group, meets monthly in various locations for the growing number of parents interested in home schooling as an alternative to public or private school.

Parents attended an activity fair with booths advertising upcoming events and vendors promoting such activities as a senior prom for homeschoolers, cello, violin and karate lessons. Teens watched interpretive dance, played games and discussed organizing a prom, field trips and service hours. They enjoyed the music of a Christian alternative rock band, Dying Daily. The performance was the first for band members Chris Rosser, 18, Jonathan Sweet, 17, Sean Cassidy, 15, and Ryan Cassidy, 17.

Martha Kernohan of Hollywood, the coordinator for teen activities for home-schooled students, helps organize field trips, dances and volunteer opportunities.

"The purpose is to get the kids involved and have fun and to fellowship with each other," Kernohan said.

Home-schooled students are offered as many opportunities as public school students, including picture day, spelling bees and extra tutoring, she said.

"I like the fact that you know what your kids are learning and you get to see their success and know that you played a part in it," said Ginger Henderson of North Miami, whose two children have been home schooled since kindergarten.

Many parents say they enjoy the freedom of home schooling.

Fellowship and awareness of available services were the primary reasons for the home-school support meeting.

"We're doing this for our kids. This is about showing them that we want the best for them," said Georgia Landers of Weston.

Other events students could sign up for at the meeting included a sewing class, dance lessons, bake-off contests, spelling bees and yearbook pictures.

"At first I was completely against the idea of my kids being home schooled, but we decided to because if we didn't our daughter would be held back a year because she has a late birthday," said Kernohan's husband, John, who is vice chairman of the Florida Parent-Educators Association, the state's largest nonprofit home-school family association.

"I had the idea of home-schooled kids being barefoot and ignorant, but my wife finally talked me into it by playing on my ego and saying `So you can't teach your own kids?'"

Now, all five of their children are home schooled.

Home schooling also has many academic benefits, parents and students said. It offers dual enrollment credit, allows the student to create a portfolio for admission to college, and scholarships exclusively for home-schooled students.

While some people wonder about the development of socialization skills, "that is one of the biggest misconceptions about home-school students," John Kernohan said.

"Socialization is defined as the ability to interact and function in a way beneficial to society. But looking at a lot of the students in public school, they are not acting in a way beneficial to society. My kids know about drugs and violence and reality -- but they don't need to be exposed to it to be aware of it."